Smell at bottling - questions on batch

[Redpiper]

I just bottled my 5th batch, the first at 5 gallons. All previous batches have been Mr. Beer sized.

I'm guessing everything will be fine, but the smell from the primary when I opened it, as well as the smell of the beer in the bottles was fairly pungent. Unfortunately I don't have the words to describe the smell; the best I can describe it is that it smelled like the yeast cake pretty heavily. Is this normal? When I tasted the hydro sample it wasn't something I wanted to finish exactly whereas with prior batches it seemed I could taste the beer to be. This one will need to overcome that...flavor.

This was also the first use of Nottingham as well as steeping grains, so don't know if that had anything to do with it. Plan to wait a month, then fridge some and find out, but in the meantime was just curious if this sounds normal.

Recipe is below for reference: (Made 5.5 gallons yet still obtained 5.7% due to 1.010 FG). Supposed to be a Red Trolley clone, but don't taste any of the caramel flavors I expected. Maybe with time? Fermented at 68*, bucket in water.

Faux Trolley 5 gall
-------------------
Brewer:
Style: American Amber Ale
Batch: 5.00 galExtract

Characteristics
---------------
Recipe Gravity: 1.056 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 23 IBU
Recipe Color: 13° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.014
Alcohol by Volume: 5.4%
Alcohol by Weight: 4.3%

Ingredients
-----------
Briess DME - Pilsen Light 5.50 lb, Extract, Extract
Carafoam 0.50 lb, Grain, Steeped
Crystal 60L 0.75 lb, Grain, Steeped
Crystal 75L 0.75 lb, Grain, Steeped

Willamette 1.00 oz, Pellet, 5 minutes
Willamette 0.75 oz, Pellet, 5 minutes
Willamette 1.25 oz, Pellet, 15 minutes
Willamette 1.00 oz, Pellet, 60 minutes

Ale yeast 1.00 unit, Yeast,

 

[frazier]

I find that Nottingham has kind of an "old floorboard" taste that doesn't go well with the beers it makes, although the beers themselves have been quite nice. I think a month in bottles will do good things for your beer.

I've also found that caramelly flavors seem to become more apparent after some time, so you've got that going for you as well.

 

[HootHootHoot]

From what I have found, it's really tough to spoil a batch of beer- you have to either be real careless with your sanitizing or you have to actually try to spoil it.

I think you are likely safe, give it a month in bottles

 

[Redpiper]

I'm not too worried about having ruined the beer - I've read enough here about that and looked at pics, etc.

I guess I'm just curious and my question would be (and maybe I'll repost it elsewhere):
Would the following things contribute to a stronger, less pleasant smell/taste at bottling? All of these were different with this batch vs. others.

Nottingham yeast
Bottling at room temp. as opposed to having cold crashed
5 gallon bucket vs. MB keg

Would describe smell as strong beer odor mixed with smell I associate with the yeast cake when I've dumped it in the past.

 

[Redpiper]

Thought I'd follow up on this.

Bottled 9/10. Put two in frig 10/9. Actually drank one on 10/10 - undercarbed and yeasty. Drank the other 10/16. Much better (evidence for refrigeration needed to get CO2 back in as well as time needed to drop yeast out of suspension for taste). Overall thought - okay.

Put 10 more in 10/16. Drank this weekend - better! Very popular with guests. Smooth, low bitterness. A little sweet, but not near the sweetness of Red Trolley (which is good as I've come to find that one TOO sweet). Nice hop flavor though - a tad spicy almost.

Putting more in for next week's party and we'll see. I'm curious if more carmel flavors will emerge over time. Over all though, as is, very smooth nice enjoyable brew!

 

[Andy_LV]

I hope you have your second batch bubbling away in fermenter... beers tend to dry up.

and make sure to hide in a very long drawer some 6pack of it

As for your question - some English ale yeasts have distinctive aroma signatures - some of them have slight "horse blanket" smell in my opinion, some are just yeasty IMHO!
You should be able to get information about yeast profiles from your LHBS.

I guess bottling at room temp had nothing to do with smell/taste.

Big contribution to beer taste/aroma is fermentation temperature - you have to ferment at yeasts specific ideal temp to get cleaner tasting beer.

 

[Redpiper]

Oh yeah, I've got 6 different batches done (well, 5 were 1/2 sized MB batches, but still). I'm now assembling supplies to get another batch going the first week of November.

Finally have a pipeline...ahh, so nice.

Actually though, I'm convinced that bottling temp. did have something to do with it. Even though it will be a PIA, I'm planning to cold crash from now on. I'll just have to empty the beer from the frig for a few days and move the shelves around. But I think it will be worth it.

All my testing so far (admittedly I'm a newbie) seems to indicate that cold crashing might have sped up the conditioning time. As the beers condition, they clean up and the yeast flavor drops out. Looking back over my tasting notes, this is the pattern. This batch took an unusually long time to do this in comparison to other batches of similar style. I'm thinking that bottling warm left more "stuff" in the bottles that needed to process over time.

I'm definitely leaving samples of all of the batches (well, okay most ) out of the frig long term to learn more about the long term effects of time on brew. Good times. Wonder if my kids teachers would appreciate a science experiment on time and beer taste...